Whicker: Miller was baseball's rainmaker without Hall pass

Nov. 27, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Marvin MIller, an economist and labor leader who died Tuesday, addresses players from the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox during spring training on March 11, 1977. BARTON SILVERMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Marvin MIller, an economist and labor leader who died Tuesday, addresses players from the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox during spring training on March 11, 1977.BARTON SILVERMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

As Red Barber observed long ago, there are only three faces on baseball's Rushmore of change.

They are Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson and Marvin Miller.

Of the three, Miller is the only man who is not in the Hall of Fame and probably never will be.

This would be like barring Eiji Toyoda from the Automotive Hall of Fame. The fact that it is a nonsensical outrage is one thing. The fact that Miller is being punished for the crime of making owners rich is quite another.

It is not Miller's first brush with irrationality but it will stand as the only one he won't overcome.

As the founder and leader of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Miller relentlessly crusaded to earn players the same rights that belonged to the fans who watched them.

When those rights were affirmed by the courts, players began to draw numbers that nearly everyone in the media and in power said would bankrupt baseball.

The evidence to the contrary is all around us – magnificent ballparks, 24/7 telecasts, runaway franchise values.

Miller, more than anyone else, created that. In doing so, he also led the most powerful and successful union movement in America.

Miller died Tuesday at age 95. You had to lean over and listen intently to him, but his swept-back hair and his defiant eyes gave him a righteous power.

Of commissioner Bowie Kuhn, he once wrote, "He often tried to pick my brain. There was scant possibility of reciprocity in that department."

Ball-playing wasn't really a profession before Miller came along. In 1970 the average salary was $29,303, the median $21,750. A six-week spring training was a necessity because players needed off-season jobs and couldn't train.

Most critically, there was a "reserve clause" that prohibited player movement – until Miller discovered an obscure paragraph that stipulated that a player could leave a club after one year if he and the club could not agree on salary.

From that, Miller spun the series of court cases and arbitration hearings that led to free agency. In one of the early ones, Andy Messersmith signed a three-year contract with Atlanta for $1 million. Total. Not per year.

Still, it horrified baseball owners, and two decades of labor combat followed.

In 1981 Miller outraged America by leading a six-week strike in the middle of the season. Owners wanted teams that lost free agents to be compensated with a commensurate player.

It is hard to overstate the hostility. Miller and management negotiator Ray Grebey did not pose together when the new agreement was signed.

The Hall of Fame held its ceremonies with no Hall of Fame Game for the first time since World War II. The mayor of Cooperstown, in a rancid reference to Miller, told the crowd, "Back then, the little man with the mustache lived in Berlin."

Minor work stoppages in 1985 and 1990 led to the Big One that wiped out the playoffs in 1994.

By then Miller had retired and Don Fehr was in charge of the union, which found itself fighting off a salary cap proposal. Play stopped in August, and the playoffs and World Series were canceled.

Replacement players, off the street, began playing exhibition games in 1995 and were preparing for real games, and a real travesty, until judge Sonia Sotomayor stepped in.

She granted the players an injunction against the owners and forced the games to be played under the old agreement.

Then, in 2002, baseball threatened to "contract," or merge, certain franchises. That was dropped as the players agreed to tighten up the salary cap and also submit to drug testing.

Since then, the peace has been deafening, and the happiness is epidemic.

Arte Moreno bought the Angels for $184 million 10 years ago and could get at least $650 million for them today.

The Dodgers are on the verge of a local TV contract that could pay them $6 billion.

Small markets are only small by comparison. The Pirates were sold for $92 million 16 years ago and are worth $336 million today with a payroll that has actually gone down from nine seasons ago.

Thirteen players made $20 million or more in 2012. San Francisco pitcher Matt Cain is operating under a six-year, $127 million deal and did not even have to become a free agent to do so.

The LOWEST average salary in 2012 belonged to Oakland – at $1.76 million per player.

Baseball just accepted a $700 million commitment from ESPN for eight years, and its revenues went from $1.4 billion in 1995 to $7 billion in 2010.

All that rain was generated by Marvin Miller, who only wanted to bring baseball players into the great American marketplace. You feel him and see him in 28 American cities, Cooperstown excluded.

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